A LIFE IN SHOES

About a zillion years ago, one of my favourite bloggers, Christina at Fashion's Most Wanted, tagged me in a shoe meme. It's taken me such a shamefully long time to pick up the baton, I can't actually remember the rules of the meme, other than one had to post pictures of one's favourite shoes. 


This weekend, however, Mr Trefusis made me sort out my shoe cupboard, and I finally got round to taking some (rather bad) pictures. Like all women I have far too many shoes, yet end up wearing only three pairs, and those are either too worn or too boring to show here. My favourite shoes should really go in the bin - they're completely knackered but they're chocolate brown stilettos, with a very pointy Blahnik-style toe and schiaparelli pink detail and I completely love them.

These are Prada: Black kid with a natural coloured lizardskin and silver piping. Sadly, like their owner , they're getting on a bit and are a little tired and worn.  Nevertheless, every time I slide my feet into them, I feel like Zelda Fitzgerald - without the dodgy alcoholism and mental issues, obviously - but in a jazz age kind of way that makes me want to perch elegantly on a bar stool and knock back a couple of Sidecars.

These are also Prada: fabric with ostrich: I fell in love with the print and the bright turquoise toes and heels. Like all Prada shoes they're very comfortable, but they're a little too distinctive to wear often and so, despite being ten years old, they're still in quite good nick.

Bottega Veneta and my most bargainacious shoes ever: they were twenty-five pounds reduced from £250, presumably because there was no call for orange shoes in London 12 years ago when I bought them. Twenty five pounds. More than anything else, they make me feel like Summer's finally arrived: I like to wear them with a pink linen shift dress and with watermelon pink varnish on my toes.

These are Kurt Geiger - satin with swarovski crystal studded heels and cripplingly uncomfortable - taxi shoes if ever there were any. They also upstage me terribly so, fabulous as they are, I've worn them about twice - once to a Harper's Bazaar party where I had to take paracetamol to be able to keep them on, and then once to a dinner party where I knew I'd be sitting down all the time. Are these what magazines call a statement shoe?

'No one would ever mistake you for my mistress in those shoes,' said Mr Trefusis, rather unflatteringly. I don't for one minute suspect him of having a mistress, but I do know what he means: you'd never slap a super-injunction on someone in Ferragamos.  However, what they lack in vampiness, they make up for in sophistication and I love them passionately not least because they remind me of my honorary grandmother, who had immense style, and swore by cashmere jumpers, linen sheets and Ferragamos with every outfit. 

I couldn't work out why these were the only flat shoes in the shoe cupboard - surely I must have other flats, I thought, casting around for evidence. I found a pair of Converse, a couple of pair of really beaten up ballet flats and (the shame) a pair of frog green Crocs: I seem only to wear flats to get from A to B, and then whip out the heels. I must have a terrible complex about being short, or maybe it's that unconsciously I think it's only worth spanking serious shoe money on what the Tiniest Trefusis calls 'heel-high shoes'. However, these glamorous gold Prada flats make me feel a bit Jacqueline Onassis. Is it just me, or do shoes have a transformative power for every woman? Is it the Cinderella thing all over again?

I couldn't photograph these to save my life - they're purple satin and very high and I wore them when I married Mr Trefusis, but that's another story for another time. They're Kurt Geiger.

My favourite shoes don't belong to me at all - the Tiniest Trefusis wore these silver Kicker boots not long after she first learned to walk.  She's very much her mother's daughter - the first word she ever said was 'Shoe'.  

THE LONDON BUNBURY

The art of Bunburying, when perfected, can enable a person to follow their whims without fear of backlash from meddlesome friends and precarious family obligations.

My taxi driver sensibly dropped me off on Porchester Gardens, right outside the private entrance to Le Café Anglais. If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have stepped out of the cab, and into Café Anglais’ private lift and found myself cocooned in elegant luxury in a trice. Too intent on looking glamorous in an enormous pair of Prada sunglasses, I tottered straight past the lift, and found myself stranded in the middle of Whiteley's shopping centre.

It's slightly counter-intuitive to put a very smart restaurant at the top of a rather less smart mall, and it's greatly to the credit of Le Café Anglais that it manages to overcome the experience of actually getting there. Having finally stumbled upon a public lift, I found myself alone with a Mohammed Al Fayed lookeylikey, who pressed me lasciviously against the lift's buttons, breathed hotly on me, insisting I was 'beeyootifooll' and that we must go for a drink together immediately. It's at times like these I realise the extraordinary disadvantages of being middle-middle class: DidI hit him with my capacious handbag? Did I cry 'Unhand me sir' in a ringing tone, pressing the alarm? No, I did not. Appalled and disconcerted, yet unwilling to appear impolite, I merely squeaked, 'Sweet of you, but I'm meeting friends' and scuttled out of the lift in heart-pounding relief as the doors opened not a second too soon.

I still couldn't find Le Café Anglais. I asked someone in Yo Sushi! who sent me to Cafe Nero. Had I not still been wearing my dark glasses, I daresay I would have arrived at the restaurant an awful lot sooner. When I finally got there, I had to spend several minutes outside, trying to recompose myself, partly to shake off the sweaty horror of my enthusiastic lift companion, but mostly to try and conquer my embarrassment at my own navigational incompetence.

Only a fool - me - would think Le Café Anglais difficult to get to. The upside of the story is that it's such a bower of bliss, I could have walked barefoot from Acton along the Westway, and it would have been worth the pain.

The interior is astonishingly beautiful - all art-deco detailing, floor to ceiling windows, and double-height ceiling. It has a wonderful understated opulence about it, cleverly excising all trace of the MacDonalds that once occupied the same space.

But it wasn’t to stare admiringly at its design or drool at the enormous menu that I was there: co-founder Charlie McVeigh had invited a cabal of twitterers to a lunch, with nothing more taxing on our agenda than a hedonistic afternoon of delicious food, wine far better than my ignorant palate deserves, and vast amounts of gossip – real life twittering, perhaps.

Proper restaurant critics have reviewed the delights on offer far better than I ever could– you may read them here and here – all I shall say is that the menu is cleverly composed of all the things you most want to eat in the world, and some things that you might hesitate to try but are works of staggering genius – like the parmesan custard with anchovy toast, which I’d rather feared might taste like a pair of superannuated socks, but is such heaven I’m salivating as I write, wondering when I can contrive to go back so I may eat it again.

An afternoon like this is my version of Wilde’s Bunburying – a miniature holiday, carefree and without a to-do list or pressing agenda – the London equivalent of a lazy day on the beach with a not-very-improving novel, and with all the transgressive appeal of stolen time, though I hasten to add, in case anyone from work is reading, I have a properly completed holiday form for anyone who'd like to see it.

And really, despite the fact that the lunch gave onto drinks and then dinner, before ending shortly before midnight, it was a very restorative Bunbury indeed.


Le Café Anglais, 8 Porchester gardens, London W2 4DB tel: 020 7221 1415 info@lecafeanglais.co.uk
http://www.lecafeanglais.co.uk/

NB : there are many beautiful pictures of Cafe Anglais on the website, but I took the one above as we were coming to the end of lunch : a reminder of an affable and convivial afternoon

THE FUTILITY SCHEME

As the recession bites, the cogs in the corporate machine bite harder. One spends ever longer slaving over a hot spreadsheet, trying to create magic formulae that will stop the numbers leaking off the page. Incessant demands rain down from on high for yet more strategies and even cleverer ideas. Vast swathes of time are laid waste sitting writing reports on what one would be doing if only one wasn't forced to sit and write a report about it.

And now that the series of measures designed to reduce the cost base has been implemented, one has even more work, because there are fewer people around to help you do it. Broadly speaking, one has to work triply hard to stay standing still, and I like nothing more than being left alone to make use of the idle minute.

So when another meeting is scheduled in the boardroom to discuss trading - or to 'share ideas' - my heart sinks even lower in my Pedro Garcia shboots. Two hours carved out of my day, sitting round an enormous table drinking bad coffee is its own particular kind of hell.

I've long since given up wondering if these Kafkaesque examples of corporate comradeship were secretly scripted by Martin Lukes, as colleagues discuss amiably whether they have the required bandwidth [tr: enough people ] or if something's actionable [tr: we can get on with trying to sort it out, as opposed to get the lawyers involved], or suggest escalating an issue. I spent a lot of time drawing confused doodles in my Smythson notebook before I realised this had nothing to do with making things worse, but simply meant it should be pushed upstairs for someone higher in the food chain to deal with. One is tempted to feed in bonkers stuff, exhorting people to 'get the potato on the fork', though in this environment the response would no doubt be that they were following Atkins.

In truth, meetings here are - management-speak aside - remarkable for the rational, open, professional and timely way in which they're conducted, with plenty of emphasis on debate and frank discussion.

But lately, and particularly in the wake of the recent issues, the tenor of these meetings has changed. People no longer speak out, or up. There is no more debate, or disagreement, or sticking of the head above the parapet. There's a new meekness, a subservience, an interest in toeing the party line. But what was more astonishing than anything was the dramatic sartorial shift: at least three-quarters of the attendees were wearing suits. This is a magazine company, not the civil service: employees are used to expressing themselves through their clothes and having the freedom to wear what they want when they want, whether it's 'trying incredibly hard' high fashion or dress-down friday chino-chic. The lines between 'home' clothes and 'work' clothes had become eroded over the last 15 odd years to the point where people no longer had a work uniform. Jeans were commonplace - albeit those with a hefty price tag, and worn with fabulous shoes.

And yet, overnight, the dress code has changed, reflecting a new, cautious, serious mood.

It's not just here, it's all over town - reports suggest that even at the top end, bespoke tailoring has never been more in demand: it's one of the few fashion categories that's in double digit growth. When you're a hedge fund manager and your fund is making pots of money for the client, no one cares if you're dressed in Havaianas and a pair of cut off denim shorts. But now things are tighter, and people more risk averse, it seems only the seriousness of a made to measure suit will do to convey the seriousness with which you take the guardianship of your client's money.

It's as if some new sumptuary law has been put in place: the economy and people's uncertainty about their jobs has rendered decoration, individuality and flair in poor taste. Clothes are cut along austerity lines, in sober neutrals. Waists are nipped in. Fabric used with a parsimony not seen since Molyneux, Worth, Amies and the rest of the Incorporated Society of Fashion Designer united in 1941 to create thirty-four utility clothing designs, with the CC41 label (Civilian Clothing 1941) sewn inside.

In 1942, the British government issued the Civilian Clothing Order, which made illegal the decorating of clothing with additional buttons, embroidery, extravagant cuffs or other frills and furbellows.

But in 2009, it seems we are more self-regulating. And it's not merely 'street-fashion', a trend coming consumer up rather than designer down: the key looks on the A/W 09 ready to wear runways also had strong tones of tailored austerity chic, and with the exception of the price tag, could have come straight out of the pattern book of those 34 Utility designs.

Prada set the tone with its boiled wool dresses, with slim, belted waists and defined, tailored shoulders.

Even Lanvin took an unusually sotto voce, pared down approach to severe tailoring, albeit one with a defiantly sexy edge

And me? Despite bellyaching about the way meetings appear to be a viable alternative to real work, I'm sure I'll be as suited and booted as the rest of them before the next session in the boardroom comes around.

If you want to be seen to be waging war on economic armageddon, better make sure you're in the right uniform.